In the field of telephone communications, a well-known charging concept consists in recording one or more parameters related to the transfer of information to a terminal and then performing charging and billing on the basis of such recorded parameters. For example, in standard telephone systems the amount of time for a call communication is recorded as a basis for billing this call communication. Another example of a parameter related to the transfer of information to a terminal device is the amount or volume of transferred data.
In a communication network, such as a telephone network, an entity for handling communications to and from a terminal device can record the above-mentioned parameters and appropriately forward these parameters to a charging entity that handles the charging and billing of services to users of terminal devices.
The term “entity” as used in the present specification and claims refers to a functional element assigned to provide a certain function in a communication system. An entity can therefore be provided by hardware, software or any suitable combination of hardware and software. An entity can be provided at one physical location, e.g. be provided by software running on a given server, or can be spread out over several physical locations, e.g. can be provided by software running in a distributed architecture.
Recently, a concept for distributing information to users has been proposed, which is called Digital Rights Management (DRM). In DRM content is not simply passed to a user of a terminal device, but much rather two data objects are generated, a first data object known as a content object and a second data object know as a rights object. The content objects are handled by a distribution entity and the rights objects are handled by a rights entity, which entities can be provided by two respective servers, or also by a single server. The basic idea of DRM is that the content in the content object is not readily accessible to the user of the terminal device, and that the rights object is necessary for gaining access to the content. Therefore, after having received the content object, a user will request from the rights entity a rights object associated with the down-loaded content object, in order to be able to access the content of the content object.
The content object can be of any desired nature, e.g. containing audio information (such as a music file), or a combination of audio and video information (such as a video clip) or can be data of other nature (such as a text or a computer game). The rights object can also have any desired nature, e.g. provide one-time access to the content object, or unrestricted access. As an example, the content in the content object can be encrypted, and the rights object comprises information for decrypting said content.